The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle: Part 3

I opened the book and was surprised to find that all the pages were BLANK!...Father said he gave me this book because I am a very opinionated young lady, which I must admit is true. My name Panya means “mouse,” but I am ANYTHING but a mouse.

Egypt has been around for THOUSANDS of years. Tourists want to come and see our pyramids and our Sphinx near Cairo. They want to witness the ancient world with their own eyes, as if they can’t believe these things truly exist.

Still others say the Americans are here to steal our treasures. The tourists come to see statues and artifacts of the ancient world. Then they take them home and put them in their private collections, or in museums. I believe we should keep our treasures in Egypt.

The Americans want to steal one of our landmarks.

The situation with Cleo is even worse than I thought. The Americans are NOT stealing it. We are GIVING it to them! I can hardly believe I just wrote those words, or that they are true. I am FURIOUS.

Father told me he has been expecting this to happen ever since June, when Ismail Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, abdicated the throne and his son Mehmet Tewfik Pasha became the new khedive. Before he left, Khedive Ismail made an agreement with the Americans allowing them to remove Cleo and take it to the United States.

Father says this is partly our own fault, and he may be right. The obelisk is at the edge of Alexandria, near the Ramleh railway depot. That is a bad part of town. Our citizens have not paid attention to Cleo or taken care of it. We neglected it.

Over the years, bad men have come with sledgehammers and broken off pieces of Cleo to sell to relic hunters.

So many of our antiquities have been looted,
Stolen, damaged and put on display
In museums around the world.

So many of our antiquities have been looted,
Stolen, damaged and put on display
In museums around the world.

Suddenly my fellow Egyptians are starting to take notice. There are other meetings like ours being held, petitions being passed around, and calls for action. Where were all these outraged citizens a year ago? Or five years ago, when it could have made a difference? Even today, many people, like my father, do not care if Cleo stays or goes.

But today everything stopped for a moment when a stooped-over worker digging with a shovel unearthed some bronze amulets and other ancient objects.

But today everything stopped for a moment when a stooped-over worker digging with a shovel unearthed some bronze amulets and other ancient objects.

Now I can see the steps and the pedestal below the obelisk, which had been covered up my entire life.

NOVEMBER 25, 1879
Today the workers built wooden scaffolding all around Cleo.

They could slide Cleo onto the deck of a ship. But the weight of the obelisk on even a very large vessel would make it top-heavy and unstable. It would easily capsize in bad weather.

One boy suggested it would be smarter to sabotage their efforts — poison their food or something like that.

The Americans are worried that when they remove Cleo, their boat might bump against the debris below the waterline.

Their turning machine looks flimsy to me.

Before he could turn Cleo on its side, Gorringe would have to raise it a few inches off its pedestal. To do this, he had a machine called a hydraulic jack. It used water to lift up heavy objects.

We all cheered. I knew the Americans would fail! The gods are conspiring against them.
Now they will have to abandon this foolish endeavor. They will finally see their folly and go home.

We all cheered. I knew the Americans would fail! The gods are conspiring against them.
Now they will have to abandon this foolish endeavor. They will finally see their folly and go home.

Our beloved Cleo is attached to a complicated system of pulleys, winches, rope, and steel cables.

On one side of the obelisk, a tall stack of wooden pallets has been positioned.

It had seemed impossible to gently turn a two-hundred-ton piece of stone sideways, but the Americans figured out a way to do it. I must admit they are an ingenious people.